Fox regular: Democrats are making “ridiculous requests” for records from Supreme Court nominee’s White House work

Similar records were released for Justices Roberts and Kagan

Fox News regular and former Republican New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu appeared on America’s Newsroom to complain that Democrats were making “ridiculous requests,” “looking for something to play smear politics,” and “pushing to the extreme” by requesting past records from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s previous work, even though Democrats are following the same vetting process used to scrutinize previous Supreme Court nominees.

Sununu took issue with the fact that Democrats requested documents from Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary under President George W. Bush, arguing that the volume of documents would take too long to review and that “a great extent of those probably have executive privilege,” so they are not eligible for review. But as Politico noted, “several recent Supreme Court nominees, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan, also had White House stints that led to review and release of large volumes of records prior to their hearings.”

From the July 30 edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom:

SANDRA SMITH (CO-HOST): What does the path look like to get there?

JOHN SUNUNU (FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE): Well, the Democrats are trying to make it difficult. They're making ridiculous requests. [Sen. Chuck] Schumer [(D-NY)] is in a bind because he has to cater to the extreme left base, the base that’s even moving further and further to the left all the time. But the problem for Schumer is that the more he does that, the more he makes it easier for folks like [Sen. Joe] Manchin [(D-WV)] and [Sen.] Heidi Heitkamp [(D-ND)] and [Sen.] Joe Donnelly (D-IN)] to break away from the extreme and support Kavanaugh as the nominee. So Schumer’s in a bind. He is burdened, I think, with the reality that the Democrats have made this process extremely political since the [Robert] Bork effort, and now they are beginning to make it so clear to the public that all they want to do is create a political issue and a political problem and not function the way the Constitution was written to function.

SMITH: Where is the fight for those documents going to go from Judge Brett Kavanaugh's previous work under George Bush?

SUNUNU: Well I think what they want to do is get their hands on the documents and then distribute them to all the special interest groups that are out there to go through them because there is no way the Senate with its staff would go through a million documents in such a short period of time. The second point is those documents, a great extent of those probably have executive privilege from having been White House documents that Kavanaugh did not create but only passed through to the president. So the Democrats are on very thin ice here, and they’re making their case weaker and weaker by pushing to the extreme.